The First The Marriage Of A
Brahman Heiress, The Second Of A Daughter Of The Fire-Worshipers.
The First Announcement Was Something To The Following Effect:
"The Family Of Bimbay Mavlankar, Etc., Etc., Are Preparing For A
Happy Event.
This respectable member of our community, unlike
the rest of the less fortunate Brahmans of his caste, has found
a husband for his grand-daughter in a rich Gujerat family of the
same caste.
The little Rama-bai is already five, her future
husband is seven. The wedding is to take place in two months
and promises to be brilliant."
The second announcement referred to an accomplished fact. It
appeared in a Parsi paper, which strongly insists on the necessity
of giving up "disgusting superannuated customs," and especially
the early marriage. It justly ridiculed a certain Gujerati newspaper,
which had just described in very pompous expressions a recent
wedding ceremony in Poona. The bridegroom, who had just entered
his sixth year "pressed to his heart a blushing bride of two and
a half!" The usual answers of this couple entering into matrimony
proved so indistinct that the Mobed had to address the questions
to their parents: "Are you willing to have him for your lawful
husband, O daughter of Zaratushta?" and "Are you willing to be
her husband, O son of Zoroaster?" "Everything went as well as it
could be expected," continued the newspaper; "the bridegroom was
led out of the room by the hand, and the bride, who was carried
away in arms, greeted the guests, not with smiles, but with a
tremendous howl, which made her forget the existence of such a
thing as a pocket-handkerchief, and remember only her feeding-bottle;
for the latter article she asked re-peatedly, half choked with sobs,
and throttled with the weight of the family diamonds. Taking
it all in all, it was a Parsi marriage, which shows the progress
of our speedily developing nation with the exactitude of a weather
glass," added the satirical newspaper.
Having read this we laughed heartily, though we did not give full
credit to this description, and thought it a good deal exaggerated.
We knew Parsi and Brahman families in which were husbands of ten
years of age; but had never heard as yet of a bride who was a
baby in arms.
- - - - -
It is not without reason that the Brahmans are fervent upholders
of the ancient law which prohibits to everyone, except the
officiating Brahmans, the study of Sanskrit and the reading of
the Vedas. The Shudras and even the high-born Vaishyas were in
olden times to be executed for such an offence. The secret of
this rigour lies in the fact that the Vedas do not permit matrimony
for women under fifteen to twenty years of age, and for men under
twenty-five, or even thirty. Eager above all that every religious
ceremony should fill their pockets, the Brahmans never stopped at
disfiguring their ancient sacred literature; and not to be caught,
they pronounced its study accursed. Amongst other "criminal
inventions," to use the expression of Swami Dayanand, there is a
text in the Brahmanical books, which contradicts everything that
is to be found in the Vedas on this particular matter: I speak
of the Kudva Kunbis, the wedding season of all the agricultural
classes of Central Asia. This season is to be celebrated once in
every twelve years, but it appears to be a field from which Messieurs
les Brahmans gathered the most abundant harvest. At this epoch,
all the mothers have to seek audiences from the goddess Mata, the
great mother - of course through her rightful oracles the Brahmans.
Mata is the special patroness of all the four kinds of marriages
practised in India: the marriages of adults, of children, of babies,
and of specimens of humanity that are as yet to be born.
The latter is the queerest of all, because the feelings it excites
are so very like gambling. In this case, the marriage ceremony
is celebrated between the mothers of the future children. Many a
curious incident is the result of these matrimonial parodies. But
a true Brahman will never allow the derision of fate to shake his
dignity, and the docile population never will doubt the infallibility
of these "elect of the gods." An open antagonism to the Brahmanical
institutions is more than rare; the feelings of reverence and
dread the masses show to the Brahmans are so blind and so sincere,
that an outsider cannot help smiling at them and respecting them
at the same time.
If both the mothers have children of the same sex, it will not
upset the Brahman in the least; he will say this was the will of
the goddess Mata, it shows that she desires the new-born babies to
be two loving brothers, or two loving sisters, as the case may be,
in future. And if the children grow up, they will be acknowledged
heirs to the properties of both mothers. In this case, the Brahman
breaks the bonds of the marriage by the order of the goddess, is
paid for doing so, and the whole affair is dropped altogether. But
if the children are of different sexes these bonds cannot be broken,
even if they are born cripples or idiots.
- - - - - -
While I am dealing with the family life of India, I had better
mention some other features, not to return to them any more. No
Hindu has the right to remain single. The only exceptions are, in
case the child is destined to monastic life from the first days
of his existence, and in case the child is consecrated to the
service of one of the gods of the Trimurti even before he is born.
Religion insists on matrimony for the sake of having a son, whose
duty it will be to perform every prescribed rite, in order that
his departed father may enter Swarga, or paradise. Even the caste
of Brahmacharyas, who take vows of chastity, but take a part and
interest in worldly life - and so are the unique lay-celibates of
India - are bound to adopt sons.
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